Commentaries:
Barnes' Notes
The cup and the platter - The drinking-cup and the dish containing food. The Pharisees were diligent in observing all the washings and obligations required by their traditions. See the notes at Mark 7:4.
Full of extortion and excess - The outside appeared well; the inside was filled with the fruit of extortion, oppression, and wickedness. The meaning is, that though they took much pains to appear well, yet they obtained a living by extortion and crime. Their cups, neat as they appeared outward, were filled, not with the fruits of honest industry, but with that which had been extorted from the poor by wicked arts. Instead of "excess," many manuscripts and editions of the Greek Testament read "wickedness."
Other Barnes' Notes entries containing Matthew 23:25:
Micah 2:3
Zephaniah 3:4
Matthew 7:15
Matthew 22:13
Matthew 23:39
Luke 11:39
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